Chapter IV.

How the Mattin office was not appointed by an ancient
tradition but was started in our own day for a definite reason.

But you must know that
this Mattins, which is now very generally observed in Western
countries, was appointed as a canonical office in our own day, and also
in our own monastery, where our Lord Jesus Christ was born of a Virgin
and deigned to submit to growth in infancy as man, and where by His
Grace He supported our own infancy, still tender in religion, and, as
it were, fed with milk.734734 The allusion is to
the monastery at Bethlehem, where Cassian had himself been educated.
See the introduction. For up till that
time we find that when this office of Mattins (which is generally
celebrated after a short interval after the Psalms and prayers of
Nocturns in the monasteries of Gaul) was finished, together with the
daily vigils, the remaining hours were assigned by our Elders to bodily
refreshment. But when some rather carelessly abused this indulgence and
prolonged their time for sleep too long, as they were not obliged by
the requirements of any service to leave their cells or rise from their
beds till the third hour; and when, as well as losing their labour,
they were drowsy from excess of sleep in the daytime, when they ought
to have been applying themselves to some duties, (especially on those
days when an unusually oppressive weariness was caused by their keeping
watch from the evening till the approach of morning), a complaint was
brought to the Elders by some of the brethren who were ardent in spirit
and in no slight measure disturbed by this carelessness, and it was
determined by them after long discussion and anxious consideration that
up till sunrise, when they could without harm be ready to read or to
undertake manual labour, time for rest should be given to their wearied
bodies, and after this they should all be summoned to the observance of
this service and should rise from their beds, and by reciting three
Psalms and prayers (after the order anciently fixed for the observance
of Tierce and Sext, to signify the confession of the Trinity)735735Trinæ
confessionis exemplo. The words appear to mean that the three
Psalms used at these offices are significant of the Persons of the Holy
Trinity. So somewhat similarly Cyprian (on the Lord’s Prayer)
speaks of the third, sixth, and ninth hours being observed as a
sacrament of the Trinity. should at the same time by an uniform
arrangement put an end to their sleep and make a beginning to their
work. And this form, although it may seem to have arisen out of an
accident and to have been appointed within recent memory for the reason
given above, yet it clearly makes up according to the letter that
number which the blessed David indicates (although it can be taken
spiritually): “Seven times a day do I praise Thee because of Thy
righteous judgments.”736736Ps. cxviii.
(cxix.) 164. For by the
addition of this service we certainly hold these spiritual assemblies
seven times a day, and are shown to sing praises to God seven times in
it.737737 This second
“Mattins” of which Cassian has been speaking is the service
which the later Church called Prime, Cassian’s first Mattins
corresponding to Lauds, and his Nocturns, or
“Vigiliæ,” to Mattins. Thus the “seven
hours” are made up as follows: (1) Nocturns or Mattins, (2)
Lauds, (3) Prime, (4) Tierce, (5) Sext, (6 None, (7) Vespers.
Compline, it will be noticed, had not yet been introduced. This appears
for the first time in the Rule of S. Benedict (c. xvi.), a century
later. By its introduction the “day hours” were made up to
seven Nocturns belonging strictly to the night, and answering to the
Psalmist’s words, “At midnight will I rise to give
thanks to Thee.” Ps. cxix. 62. Lastly, though this same form, starting
from the East, has most beneficially spread to these parts, yet still
in some long-established monasteries in the East, which will not brook
the slightest violation of the old rules of the Fathers, it seems never
to have been introduced.738738 The introduction
of Prime appears to have been very gradual even in the West, for,
though an office for it is prescribed in S. Benedict (c. xix.), yet
there is no mention of it in the Rule of Cæsarius of Arles for
monks nor in that of Isidore of Seville, and it is omitted by
Cassiodorus in his enumeration of the seven hours observed by the
monks. After Benedict the next to mention it appears to be Aurelius, a
successor of Cæsarius at Arles, and by degrees it made its way to
universal adoption in the West. In the Greek Church the office for it
is said continuously with Lauds (τὸ ὄρθρον).

734 The allusion is to
the monastery at Bethlehem, where Cassian had himself been educated.
See the introduction.

735Trinæ
confessionis exemplo. The words appear to mean that the three
Psalms used at these offices are significant of the Persons of the Holy
Trinity. So somewhat similarly Cyprian (on the Lord’s Prayer)
speaks of the third, sixth, and ninth hours being observed as a
sacrament of the Trinity.

737 This second
“Mattins” of which Cassian has been speaking is the service
which the later Church called Prime, Cassian’s first Mattins
corresponding to Lauds, and his Nocturns, or
“Vigiliæ,” to Mattins. Thus the “seven
hours” are made up as follows: (1) Nocturns or Mattins, (2)
Lauds, (3) Prime, (4) Tierce, (5) Sext, (6 None, (7) Vespers.
Compline, it will be noticed, had not yet been introduced. This appears
for the first time in the Rule of S. Benedict (c. xvi.), a century
later. By its introduction the “day hours” were made up to
seven Nocturns belonging strictly to the night, and answering to the
Psalmist’s words, “At midnight will I rise to give
thanks to Thee.” Ps. cxix. 62.

738 The introduction
of Prime appears to have been very gradual even in the West, for,
though an office for it is prescribed in S. Benedict (c. xix.), yet
there is no mention of it in the Rule of Cæsarius of Arles for
monks nor in that of Isidore of Seville, and it is omitted by
Cassiodorus in his enumeration of the seven hours observed by the
monks. After Benedict the next to mention it appears to be Aurelius, a
successor of Cæsarius at Arles, and by degrees it made its way to
universal adoption in the West. In the Greek Church the office for it
is said continuously with Lauds (τὸ ὄρθρον).